GENEVA (NYTIMES) - Venezuelan special forces have carried out thousands of extrajudicial killings in the past 18 months and then manipulated crime scenes to make it look as if the victims had been resisting arrest, the United Nations said Thursday (July 4) in a report detailing wide-ranging government abuses targeting political opponents. Special Action Forces described by witnesses as "death squads" killed 5,287 people in 2018 and another 1,569 by mid-May of this year, in what are officially termed by the Venezuelan government "Operations for the Liberation of the People," UN investigators reported. Laying out a detailed description of a lawless system of oppression, the report says the actual number of deaths could be much higher. It cites accounts by independent groups who report more than 9,000 killings for "resistance to authority" over the same period. "There are reasonable grounds to believe that many of these killings constitute extrajudicial executions committed by the … [Read more...] about Venezuela forces killed thousands, then covered it up, UN says
Extrajudicial killings
DOJ orders probe into activist killings in Bicol
DOJ orders probe into activist killings in Bicol (Philstar.com) - June 19, 2019 - 5:43pm MANILA, Philippines — Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra has ordered an investigation into the killing of three activists in the Bicol region in recent days. In a statement, Undersecretary Mark Parete said Guevarra approved Tuesday the creation of two Special Investigating Teams to probe the killings of former Bayan Muna Bicol regional coordinator Neptali Moraga, and Karapatan-Sorsogon members Ryan Hubilla and Nelly Bagasala. "Acting pursuant to Administrative Order 35, the secretary of Justice directed prosecutors to head the investigating teams tasked to ascertain if the incidents are politically motivated and to assist in the build up of cases for the successful prosecution of those responsible," Parete, also the agency’s spokesperson, said. AO 35 created the Inter-agency Committee on Extra-legal Killings, Enforced … [Read more...] about DOJ orders probe into activist killings in Bicol
Nigerian gangs kill 43 in several attacks: Police
KANO, NIGERIA: Gunmen on motorbikes killed 43 people in waves of attacks in northern Nigeria, police said Monday, the latest violence by criminal gangs raiding villages and stealing livestock. The string of attacks, carried out overnight Saturday to Sunday in Nigeria’s far northwestern Sokoto state, saw the gangs ride out from forest hideouts, speeding into villages and unleashing their weapons. “They opened fire on the village indiscriminately,“ said Abdullahi Dantani, from the village of Satiru, where 18 people were murdered. In Sokoto state’s Rabah district, gunmen rode into four villages — Rukunni, Tsage, Giire and Kalfu — massacring 25 people. “Twenty-five people were killed,“ said Ibrahim Kaoje, Sokoto state’s top police officer. “Several domestic animals were rustled by the attackers.” Four people were arrested in connection to those attacks, Kaoje said, “including a female informant of the gangs, who was … [Read more...] about Nigerian gangs kill 43 in several attacks: Police
Seven killed in Myanmar monastery shelling: Witnesses
YANGON: Seven people were killed when artillery rounds slammed into a monastery where they were sheltering from firefights between military and insurgent forces in Myanmar's Rakhine state, witnesses said on Tuesday (Jun 4) .The military has deployed thousands of troops to the western state, where it is locked in bloody battles with Arakan Army (AA) rebels fighting for more autonomy for ethnic Rakhine Buddhists.Clashes are heating up in the same area where the military drove out 740,000 Rohingya Muslims in a 2017 campaign UN investigators have said amounted to genocide.On Monday morning, fighting engulfed the village of Sapa Htar in northern Rakhine state's Minbya township, village leader Myo Kyaw Aung told AFP by phone Tuesday.He described how villagers took refuge in the local monastery after artillery fire hit several homes."Then ... shelling hit the monastery," he said, adding that in addition to the seven deaths, an equal number were injured.Many of the community of some 800 … [Read more...] about Seven killed in Myanmar monastery shelling: Witnesses
Brazil reports record number of killings by police in Rio state
RIO DE JANEIRO: Police in Brazil's Rio de Janeiro state killed a record number of people in the first quarter of the year, an average of five per day, officials said Friday (May 3).However, the overall number of homicides in the state popular with tourists dropped sharply.The period coincided with the first three months of rule by Governor Wilson Witzel, who was elected in large part due to his support for the tough anti-crime policy of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, who also came to power in January.From January through March, 434 people were killed during "police intervention," a 17.9 per cent increase compared to the same stretch of 2018, said the state Institute for Public Safety.That is the highest quarterly figure since record keeping of police-related killings began in 1998.But the total number of homicides in Rio state, including those committed by police, fell by 18 per cent compared to the first three months of last year.The number went from 1,868 down to 1,528, but the … [Read more...] about Brazil reports record number of killings by police in Rio state